Dear Editor:
After reading the article entitled Municipalities to see who pays to fill the lake in the May 31 issue of the Rimbey Review about filling Gull Lake, it reminded me of the summer of 1938 or 1939 when Doug Williams and I were with a half dozen fellows our age at the lake east of Rimbey.
Doug Williams said, ‘The lake is shallow enough to walk across’ and he proved that it was by wading across the lake and back. We were discussing the fact that the lake was getting too shallow and we thought it would be a good idea to build a dam across the lake toward the north, straight east of Rimbey toward the north end of the lake and build a highway on top of the dam and in the middle put an old Dutch windmill operating a waterwheel that would pump all the water in the north end that would put more water in the south end.
I remember two or three summers during the Dirty 30s that the Blindman River didn’t have enough water to fill a bathtub.
The Dutch windmill would be a tourist attraction. The northeast would be dry and provide about 100 to 200 acres of farmland to grow hay or other crops. The south would have more water. The operating cost and upkeep would be far less than pumping from the Blindman River.
Walter Langmuir
Creston, B.C.